Birds of Paradise Lost

San Francisco and the Immigrant Narrative

Andrew Lam, San Francisco journalist and author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres, will speak about his latest collection of short stories, Birds of Paradise Lost—a book that chronicles Vietnamese refugees' struggles to rebuild their lives in the San Francisco Bay Area after a painful exodus.

Lam himself came to San Francisco from Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War at age 11 and never left it. "In a way," he says of his latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost is a love song for the city where I grew up."

The recipient of a Pen and other journalism awards, Lam came to the US as a refugee in 1976. He is the co-founder of New America Media <http://newamericamedia.org>, an association of over 2000 ethnic media outlets in the U.S.